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CITIZEN
Citizen celebrates bidding, although Citizen was puzzled by two.
Chelmsford’s successful
bid for City comprises places such as Rochester, Gillingham and
Medway, in Kent, is actually an administrative area that
Status and admits Chatham. Stand in any of those and ask directions to
being taken by surprise
over the timing Sunderland - and I’d imagine you’d get some pretty puz-
Medway City Centre - as one might in say, Preston or
as Citizen had already zled expressions!
completed its second Further research shows that Rochester was once a city
column - on
- a status that initially passed to Medway borough when
Chelmsford’s bid for city it was formed, but later an outgoing council neglected to
status - when out of the appoint ceremonial Charter Trustees (whatever they
blue (?) the announcement was made!
are) to continue to represent Rochester, causing it to
Having, perhaps in hindsight, been mildly disparaging lose its city status - an error not even noticed until 2002.
about some rival bids, the editor gave Citizen a deadline How clumsy! Surely they should expect to remain in the
to rewrite - whilst retaining the gist of the original, as naughty corner for a few years yet.
you only have to watch the Oscars to know that once The other puzzling candidate was Tower Hamlets - a
victory is announced, everyone becomes
London Borough encompassing Brick Lane, Canary
magnanimous in success!
Wharf, Poplar and Stepney. Where exactly is the ‘city
So here goes. Citizen loves cities (as its name may suggest)
- and takes City breaks several times a year in the its commuting readers will work in Tower Hamlets and
centre’ of Tower Hamlets? Citizen is aware that many of
UK, Europe and further afield.
that these words may well find their way there, but surely
logic suggests that if this had achieved city status,
Essex born and bred, Citizen had long believed that the
county deserved a city and celebrates Chelmsford’s some or all of the other 30 or so London Boroughs
success over its rivals, including the counties two other would want it too? And anyway, doesn’t London ‘the
candidates.
Metropolis’ already includes two cities - the City of
However, some blogs and comments on websites seem London and Westminster? Surely it shouldn’t be
to be a little condescending about the size of
greedy?
Chelmsford. In fact, at around 169,000 citizens,
Hampshire - along with Kent and Essex, one of the
Chelmsford is already bigger than 25 current English largest counties in the south - has three cities in
cities, including Cambridge and such comparative minnows
as Wells and Lichfield. Of its fellow candidates, Cambridgeshire - a much smaller county - also has
Southampton, Portsmouth and Winchester.
Chelmsford was only dwarfed by Reading (the
three, including Ely, the third smallest in England.
favourite), Dudley, Luton and Milton Keynes.
Yorkshire has no less than six cities and Lancashire
This raises another point, as in Citizens book, there three, excluding Liverpool and Manchester - both taken
should be a distinction between your average city and a away to create the counties of Merseyside and Greater
truly massive one, such as London or New York. Manchester, although despite this, many residents still
For example, how can you use the same word to call themselves Lancastrians. Indeed, Lancashire
describe Paris (population 2,181,371 in 2008) and County Cricket Club plays most of their matches in
Bangor with 13,725 inhabitants?
Manchester - apart from last season when they won the
Citizen believes that a different name should be used County Championship mainly playing in Liverpool.
for the great, world class cities, of which most countries Essex, of course, played at Ilford and Leyton long after
only have one or two, and a few, like the US, have several.
For example, Spain can probably lay claim to two even play Twenty20 at the Olympic Stadium in Stratford
they had been hived off into Greater London and may
(or maybe three, if you ask a Basque separatist!). one day.
This word, already in limited use, came to prominence Had Bolton - also in Greater Manchester - been successful,
this would have destroyed one of the great trivia
in Fritz Lang’s classic 1927 film ‘Metropolis’. Doesn’t
that suit places like London, Paris, New York, Rome and questions of all time: “Which is England’s largest town?”
Sydney far better than using the same descriptor as for and led to a swift rewrite of a hundred Pub Quiz books.
smaller cities that can be seen pretty thoroughly in a Nearer to home in Suffolk, Ipswich also applied. Had
day or two from one of those open-top sightseeing they won, like Swansea, the football team would presumably
have needed to change its name from Town to
buses that seem to be everywhere you go in the world?
Indeed, will Chelmsford now get one?
City. Citizen would have to ask how the club that is in
Chelmsford has no claim to be a Metropolis, but its success
brings to a close a longstanding issue - that Essex the first attempt - and which gave England its two great-
the record books as the only one to win the league at
was the largest county in England without a city. est managers - could ever change its name from Town
If you Google ‘which counties do not have a city’ a to City. This would also surely have confused those of
Yahoo answer wrongly identifies fourteen. In fact, there their fans who use a particularly colourful bit of rhyming
are ten, as four named DO include cities - Hertfordshire slang to serenade arch rivals Norwich CITY from over
(St Albans); Huntingdonshire (which technically no the border in Norfolk!
longer exists and would, in any case, include
It was therefore right that England’s newest City was in
Peterborough), Staffordshire (Stoke) and Wiltshire Essex - you could almost say it was ‘the only way’!
(Salisbury).
In Citizen’s view, while it would have also celebrated
The remaining ten are Bedfordshire, Berkshire,
victory for either Colchester (with Boudicca, the Castle
Buckinghamshire, Essex, Northumberland, Rutland (no and the original University in its corner) or Southend
surprises there), Shropshire, Suffolk, Surrey and (with the longest pier, the Kursaal and its Golden Mile) -
Warwickshire.
Chelmsford (as the home of County Cricket, the County
You can see why Reading and the other three named Council, a small boutique Cathedral, the Crown Court
above - along with Colchester and Southend - were and birthplace of radio) was the right choice.
such strong rivals.
Had the announcement of Chelmsford’s success come
The Queen bestows city status on a town at every significant
anniversary in her reign. At the Silver Jubilee in we might have echoed the famous Sun headline, “It was
after Citizens original column had appeared, no doubt
1977 it was Derby, in 1992 Sunderland and in 2002 both The Edge what won it.” However, Citizen strongly suspects
that the Essex Chronicle might have had some-
Preston all of it, I assume, and not just the North End
part - and Newport became cities, although in the case thing to say about that!
of the latter, the football team still thinks it’s a County. Citizen also salutes their efforts on the Town’s - sorry -
This time there were 20 English towns (and 26 overall) city’s behalf!
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